Wednesday

Given the current state of many Christian settings I feel led to pose the question, “Why would any thinking person want to be a Christian?”

Given the current state of many Christian settings, I feel led to pose the question, “Why would any thinking person want to be a Christian?”

It is abundantly clear to me that more of us Christian leaders need to grasp an unfortunate truth and distasteful reality that what the Bible describes as faithful and transformed followers of Jesus of Nazareth, or what has come to be known as “Christian,” does not, for the most part, represent what the “institutional” Church has come to be known.

Also, it is clear that far too many individuals who claim the title of Christian have little authenticity to what the Bible describes as true Christian demeanor.

Even though this expresses a rather negative action to what I firmly believe is the state of the contemporary Church, I certainly acknowledge there are remarkable examples, both individually and congregationally, where a vibrant view of Christianity can be experienced. However, given the reality of the lack of fervor, attendance, commitment of participation and faithfulness to mission outreach, why would any person believe anything “the Church” says it stands for and holds as proclaimed truth?

Why are any of us prompted to claim we are Christians? In general, humanistic thought settles on the idea that “collective humanity” is superior in practice than the perpetuating of the mythological deity or deities of any religious expression. The fact of the matter is in the last couple of generations, the very concept of “church” has disintegrated into the slippery slope of irrelevancy, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Both the individual Christian and institutional Church can share much of the responsibility in the failure to validate to the outside world whether Christianity, as described in the Bible, is true and actually practiced or nothing more than a long-term cultural anomaly based on superstition and indigenous folklore.

I know this may seem like heavy-duty stuff, but it lies at the heart of the difficulty the Christian church finds itself. No longer can the Church depend on blind loyalty from a traditional base of population. No longer can there be assurance of assumed multi-generational family participation within a local church setting in general, or even religion in particular.

Gone are the days where Sunday school was about actual study of scriptural and theological points of reference instead of donuts, coffee, crayons and babysitting. Gone are the days when clergy are assumed to be the most thoughtful, caring, ethical, useful, morale and theologically astute individuals in the community they live. There is no one to blame but ourselves, and we have got to stop hiding from this overwhelming cultural reality and do something about it.

How can we take back and set up what is supposed to be biblically authentic Christianity? Start with the following two points of reference. First, the Church does not represent authentic Christianity –– each faithful believer does! Without authentic individual believers, there is no Church. Without honest, passionate, self-sacrificing and profoundly loving individual followers of Jesus, there cannot and will not be actual Christianity experienced.

The reality is the Bible is replete with the message that God “hates” religion. This biblical hatred of institutional religion can easily be found in Amos 5:21-24, where it reads, “I, the LORD, hate and despise your religious celebrations and your times of worship. I won’t accept your offerings or animal sacrifices –– not even your very best. No more of your noisy songs! I won’t listen when you play your harps. But let justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry.”

Beloved, God doesn’t care one bit about the size of your local church’s physical structure. That is irrelevant. God doesn’t care about flat-screen TV’s or the color of the plush carpet in the sanctuary. God certainly couldn’t care less how many prominent folk adorn the pews. Why? Because if an authentic believer isn’t living and breathing the message of a loving, inclusive, affirming, evangelical, and validating environment of spiritual and practical transformation, it is useless in the sight of God.

If the universal body of believers –– both smart and not-so-smart, the spiritually mature as well as the spiritually searching, all age demographics and every ethnic and racial distinction who claims the lordship of Christ –– doesn’t start acting like it and take back the Gospel of Christ from the heretical and stifling structures of institutional religion … we will continue to see a cultural fading into irrelevancy.

The Rev. Ed Schneider is pastor of The Rock church of Oak Ridge, Tenn. www.therockoakridge.net.

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